Fixing the US Attorney Appointment Process

The House has just debated the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, which has already passed the Senate and would revoke the power of the President to appoint interim US Attorneys for extended periods, effectively bypassing Senate confirmation. On March 23, the House had passed a somewhat stronger bill (H.R. 580), which included the same repeal of the 2006 provision as the Senate bill, but also included a provision preventing the Administration from using the Vacancies Act to allow the Attorney General to make continuous interim appointments of U.S. Attorneys. The House passed H.R. 580 by a strong bipartisan vote of 329 to 78, but Republicans have blocked H.R. 580 in the Senate. Therefore, the House will pass S. 214 to get a bill to the President's desk.

Rep. Howard Berman (CA-28) spoke in favor of the bill:

Rep. Berman: "The bill we are considering today would reinstate a system that encourages politics to be left at the door during the appointment process and creates a check on the system if the Executive Branch cannot bring itself to do that."

Extended transcript:

"We passed HR. 580 last month. The ongoing investigation uncovered many issues in the Department that we want to examine. In the meantime, we should quickly address the problem we know about. The bill we are considering today would reinstate a system that encourages politics to be left at the door during the appointment process and creates a check on the system if the Executive Branch cannot bring itself to do that.

"The reason we're considering a second bill on this topic is that Republicans in the other body have blocked the house-passed bill from progressing. The only difference between these two bills is that the House bill specifically precluded the Administration from using the Vacancy Reform Act to extend interim appointments for another 210 days. This is a provision that the Bush Administration used nearly 30 times in its first five years to replace US Attorneys. If this avenue remains open, we are permitting the practice of circumventing Senate confirmation to continue. A temporary appointee can serve for nearly a year without a presidential nomination or going through the confirmation process.

"It's ironic, isn't it? We hear the arguments all the time about the Senate not acting fast enough to confirm judicial appointments -- there's rarely an emergency to get a district judge confirmed. US Attorneys are different. In any given district, there is only one US Attorney. If the Administration can simply use extended temporary appointments, the problem will continue. This bill shouldn't be our last word on the matter."